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There's another issue where middlemen like Amazon are mixing counterfeit product into the flow of real products. This discussion came up during the 2017 Solar

There's another issue where middlemen like Amazon are mixing counterfeit product into the flow of real products. This discussion came up during the 2017 Solar Eclipse where Amazon was selling counterfeit viewing glasses and then recalling legitimate product from real vendors in the confusion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15008338 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15008338

sofaofthedamned 9y ago
Co-mingling of inventory is why i'll never buy anything vaguely counterfeitable from either. I previously had fake Sennheiser headphones sold by Amazon themselves.
nkrisc 9y ago
This is exactly why I no longer buy electronics or other higher ticket consumer goods from Amazon. Inevitably I'll be researching the product on Amazon and it will have 5 stars reviews with a healthy smattering of 1 star reviews. If you investigate the 1 star reviews it turns out most of them are usually from people who received a counterfeit. So you have people buying from (ostensibly) the same product page on the site, but some percentage are getting inferior counterfeit products. If there's a way around that I haven't figured it out and won't be spending any more time to figure it out. I now buy from authorized retailers and have yet to have a problem. Unless I'm buying little plastic things that stick on my desk and hold cables. I still buy those from Amazon. I don't really care if they're counterfeit, insofar as they could even be.
- deleted 9y ago
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- ng12 9y ago
  I only order items "Sold by Amazon" and have never received a counterfeit item (AFAICT). I always assume those reviews are from 3rd party sellers -- is that an incorrect assumption?
  - jaggederest 9y ago
    Amazon commingles everything, even "sold by amazon" products, unless they've changed that recently. Everything goes into the warehouse by SKU and has no further tracking.
  - nkrisc 9y ago
    I've heard many anecdotes to the contrary. At this point I don't know what's true about it or not so I just choose not to trust Amazon until I can be convinced otherwise.
db48x 9y ago
It's also pretty bad for the merchants. If you sell a product via Amazon, and it gets comingled with counterfeits from another merchant you can get fined because you ended up selling someone a counterfeit.

sofaofthedamned 9y ago

Co-mingling of inventory is why i'll never buy anything vaguely counterfeitable from either. I previously had fake Sennheiser headphones sold by Amazon themselves.

nkrisc 9y ago

This is exactly why I no longer buy electronics or other higher ticket consumer goods from Amazon. Inevitably I'll be researching the product on Amazon and it will have 5 stars reviews with a healthy smattering of 1 star reviews. If you investigate the 1 star reviews it turns out most of them are usually from people who received a counterfeit. So you have people buying from (ostensibly) the same product page on the site, but some percentage are getting inferior counterfeit products. If there's a way around that I haven't figured it out and won't be spending any more time to figure it out. I now buy from authorized retailers and have yet to have a problem. Unless I'm buying little plastic things that stick on my desk and hold cables. I still buy those from Amazon. I don't really care if they're counterfeit, insofar as they could even be.

deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
ng12 9y ago
I only order items "Sold by Amazon" and have never received a counterfeit item (AFAICT). I always assume those reviews are from 3rd party sellers -- is that an incorrect assumption?
- jaggederest 9y ago
  Amazon commingles everything, even "sold by amazon" products, unless they've changed that recently. Everything goes into the warehouse by SKU and has no further tracking.
- nkrisc 9y ago
  I've heard many anecdotes to the contrary. At this point I don't know what's true about it or not so I just choose not to trust Amazon until I can be convinced otherwise.

db48x 9y ago

It's also pretty bad for the merchants. If you sell a product via Amazon, and it gets comingled with counterfeits from another merchant you can get fined because you ended up selling someone a counterfeit.